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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperAudioSound Designer Reel Critique
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mcshinigami
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« on: February 20, 2015, 11:47:34 AM »

I know this forum isn't for portfolio postings, but I was hoping I could post a link to my newly created sound design demo reel and get some feedback from sound/game guys on here. GDC is coming up soon and I'm hoping to make some connections so I put this together.





Any feedback but negative and positive would be appreciated, and if this topic is appreciated I think it'd be cool to see other reel from other talent and give my own feedback or ideas on it as well.

For those who care here's a brief further explanation of the pieces you see.

Intro:
I made this in Adobe After Effects (first time with the program) following a Youtube tutorial and I used library sounds for a quick sound layering. (SoundMorph TimeFlux bundle)

Once:
This is a 2D/3D game I've been working on the past year mostly by myself for the purposes of learning Wwise middleware and implementation into Unity. It's not really the most well designed game but I've done all the art, level design, story, audio, implementation, and some code by myself (some help with code). I've learned so much from this project and continue to learn more from it.

SAE Contest:
This was a contest the SAE school held online to design sound for the provided scene. Boom library provided some animal sounds to use. I recorded a few more elements, used a few from freesound.org, and manipulated and blended sounds together with Camel Audio Alchemy (my favorite synth) and processing.

Unearthed:
Another project you can find a devlog for on here, but I've lost contact with the creator recently. I designed sound effects and had suggestions for how the sound was implemented. There's no current version of the build with my new effects in it so I actually recorded gameplay and ran the recording in my DAW and placed sounds manually. It sounds better then my 1st generation implemented sounds.

Crows:
When I was in college this was my favorite project. It's mostly me doing a lot of heavy editing of sound effects from freesound.org but some are recorded/synthesized by me. The sound of the trees are actually me using a telephone pickup microphone and recording the electronic sounds of swooshing it by my old macbook. The feather sound a the end and the chime with the logo are synthesized by me with an old Alesis Micro and some edited patches creatively played.   


Thanks,

Dre
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Valoon
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« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2015, 03:45:52 AM »

Hi,

So I am not in the industry yet, I only did one internship related to sound design so take this with caution.


I think, the sounds overall are cool/good but you don't have enough of them. What I mean by that it that more than half of your demo has long stuff layered one after the other, not many small sounds with details, and almost 0 foley.

It is to the point that you kinda feel like it's mostly ambient music. Basically what you've done could have been a composer job, with a few of your sounds assets with it.

Unearthed is the only one that feels like 100% sound design with 0 music.

But I don't think it's 100% your fault, people always gave my as advice was to take a trailer from a famous game and remake it. I understand that you have games to show some Wwise training but since they are small games they don't really allow you to have much details.
Maybe it would be good on the side to show integration skills, but you really want to do something with 0 music (very important) and a lot of details to show more sound design skills.

I am talking something like this (regardless of the quality of audio, I am talking about the concept) :





And this is mine which is basically the same style as the one above :

http://couchardthomas.com/?page_id=17

I think the best is to have something about integration like you have with yours and one like these which are more cinematic.
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mcshinigami
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« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2015, 11:20:09 AM »

Thanks for your feedback. I'm not entirely sold on the idea of basically having only cinematic game cutscenes for a demo reel, which is something that can be common and has merit, but from my talks in my networking group it seems like there's a lot of focus on entry level guys needing to have a comprehension with audio middleware. I feel it's important to showcase in a demo reel when your focusing on working for a company.

Now that being said, I do agree to a point I may not have what some might consider a large amount of Foley work in my reel. I don't feel it's entirely lacking though as the majority of my reel is based on sounds I've recorded/synthesized on my own or shows heavy editing abilities of canned sounds, as in the case with my "Crows" piece or the SAE piece. In a earlier concept of my reel I had another piece I worked on that was a game capture of a sequence from the game Mirror's Edge with no music and was basically like one the example reels you showed on here. I didn't feel like it fit in very well with the rest of my work and so I cut it.

Recently I've done more work on a 3D concept level for my personal game that I think I'm going to replace one of the other scenes with in the reel. It will show more interactive sound effects in it in a 3D space and I think it will add more small sounds to the piece.

I appreciate you taking the time to offer your input and will keep some of your ideas in mind as I work on this further. Thank you.
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Valoon
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« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2015, 07:48:17 AM »

Thanks for your feedback. I'm not entirely sold on the idea of basically having only cinematic game cutscenes for a demo reel, which is something that can be common and has merit, but from my talks in my networking group it seems like there's a lot of focus on entry level guys needing to have a comprehension with audio middleware. I feel it's important to showcase in a demo reel when your focusing on working for a company.


Well, I might have exprimed myself wrong, I am not english sorry. I definitly agree with that, what I am saying is that you should try to have both I think. I lack the middleware one myself and I work on that right now.

The thing with trailers from big companies is that they are very detailed and really allow you to go all in on sounds which I think can show more raw sound design skills than a demo based on audio integration done in small games.

I think having both is a great thing.
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groovyone
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« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2015, 01:36:43 AM »

Remember your demo reel is The FIRST Impression of your employability in 30-60 seconds!!!!

You are right on the ball with needing to know implementation authoring in middleware to get anywhere - there is a lot of more complex sound design that is done at real time and someone who can walk in and not only design the sounds but also design them to work with the game's features and implement / test is much more marketable. When you are on a team of any size, it is very likely your role is to do some implementation.

What you want from a demo reel is a strong message that you understand the creative process and that you can imagine what things sound like and then can craft a cohesive-believable sonic representation of those ideas through your sound design and production skills.

When I review demo reel material during the selection for interview processes - I look for a few things:

1. Choice of demo material - what and why did you choose that specific material to showcase your skills? If you have limiting material, you limit your ability to showcase how you shine. Also relevance to the position. If we make mythical fantasy titles, why on earth does your demo reel consist of FPS military game sound design?

2. Timing of demo material - always lead with your strongest first impression - you have 20-60 seconds to tell the person who is going to hire you what you can do and how well you can do it. Don't dwell on empty space unless you have a good reason to bring attention to sparsity.

3. Do you understand how sound works both psycho-acoustically and physically and how to adjust them so they fit into your virtual environment spatially. Do you pay attention to these kind of details?

4. Do you pick sound design that easily can correlate to the visual material. Is what I am hearing believable in the context of the video and in relation to the other sounds and setting presented.



Valoon has a good point, the material provided in trailers has many opportunities for your raw sound design interpretation. I'd go as far as to say to be really noticed - provide:

1x CutScene / Trailer - 20-30 seconds is enough

1-2x GamePlay replacement : 20-30 seconds - various gameplay elements. Sound design done and then just synched and positioned spatially in your DAW of choice. This should showcase how you would actually design sound assets for a game and thus the overall game as it would sound implemented.


ONCE::
Whilst i can tell you are really proud of your achievement in coding figuring out unity and game and audio implementation. It's very slow, and very simple as demo material to hold a major focus in the demo reel. Perhaps edit it down to showcase just the most interesting bits in under 30 seconds. Perhaps label things you did, with text as you show case each implementation term - like 3D Source Emitter and environmental reverb settings. etc. It may help the audience take more that isn't immediately apparent from the video.

I noticed it was shown:
  • 20 seconds
  • 30seconds
  • 30seconds


Unearthed: If you are re-doing this in your DAW - and are improving the sound - do your best to really re-vitalize the sound rather than just re-make the old sounds.

Regarding voice, voice acting is hard to pull off convincingly, a good way to get a decent result is record a friend while you prick their finger, or pinch them or some kind of emotional trigger. Instead of voice, a relational damage sound could be used.

I noticed your other sounds have dungeon or cave reverb however the voice is dry. It feels inconsistent in relation to your other sounds. Thirdly the perspective of the voice makes the player character on screen pop out from his surroundings - ie removal of immersion. Perhaps if this was an intentional choice, I'd ask why you did this.

Crows:
Interesting piece but again quite slow, and quite abstract.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2015, 11:51:25 AM by groovyone » Logged

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mcshinigami
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« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2015, 12:08:37 PM »

Thank you for your reply and advice. This current version I'm needing to be finished with by Tuesday as I'm heading to GDC so I'm not able to take in all the points of both your advice for this version unfortunately. But when I return I plan on grabbing a current game cutscene and replacing the sound for it as well as possibly brushing more details into my Mirror's Edge Piece and incorporating them into the reel while possibly subtracting the SAE contest entry and the Crows scene.

For now I've added in a 3D scene to replace the 2D basement scene and changed up the reverb sends on the Unearthed scene. I'll post this new version tomorrow.

Edit: Final before GDC Reel for anyone curious

« Last Edit: February 28, 2015, 12:30:17 PM by mcshinigami » Logged

groovyone
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« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2015, 10:16:43 AM »

Good job on the little fixes.

I wish you luck with your GDC trip as I'm sure you'll have a great time!

Your demo reel is a good way to showcase a snippit of what you can do, but really building a good strong network of people through conversation and good times is equally as important. You don't even need a demo CD these days, just a business card and a link to your online information - that way your demo reel is not fixed in stone.

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mcshinigami
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« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2015, 11:33:49 AM »

Thank you. I'm really excited just to meet other audio guys. I'm part of a local group that meets once a month and it's been really awesome so far. GDC is going to be huge. I recently had about 150 high quality business cards made with links to my social media and website. I'm hoping to pass most of them out.
I'm not planning to show the demo reel to everyone I meet, I just felt it was a good idea to have something on my tablet with me I can show someone if they are interested right there. If not they can check out my site and I'll be updating it as time goes on. Thanks for all the advice.
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